A nano-influencer is an influencer with roughly 1,000 to 10,000 followers. It's the smallest commonly recognized influencer tier, and nano-influencers are typically regular people with a genuine interest in a topic rather than professional content creators.

The 1,000–10,000 range is a general convention, not a fixed cutoff, and some definitions start as low as a few hundred followers. What sets nano-influencers apart isn't the exact number but the closeness of the relationship with their audience. Their followers are often personal connections, neighbors, or people who share a specific hobby or local community.

Nano-influencers typically have higher engagement rates than micro-influencers (roughly 10,000–50,000 followers), since their audience knows them more personally, but each individual nano-influencer reaches far fewer people. Brands usually work with a large number of nano-influencers at once rather than one or two, to add up to meaningful reach.

Nano-influencers are often the cheapest tier to work with sometimes compensated in free product through product seeding rather than cash, and their recommendations can read as more like a friend's opinion than an ad, which fits well with local businesses or niche products aimed at a tightly defined community.